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High-ranking officer from Putin’s elite security team defects

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

LONDON — On October 14, a Russian engineer named Gleb Karakulov boarded a flight from Kazakhstan to Turkey with his wife and daughter. He switched off his phone to shut out the crescendo of urgent, enraged messages, said goodbye to his life in Russia and tried to calm his fast-beating heart.But this was no ordinary Russian defector. Karakulov was an officer in President Vladimir Putin’s secretive elite personal security service — one of the few Russians to flee and go public who have rank, as well as knowledge of intimate details of Putin’s life and potentially classified information.Karakulov, who was responsible for secure communications, said moral opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his fear of dying there drove him to speak out, despite the risks to himself and his family.“Our president has become a war criminal,” he said. “It’s time to end this war and stop being silent.”Karakulov’s account generally conforms with others that paint the Russian president as a once ch...

Celebrations, destruction on campus follow UConn victory, 15 people arrested

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

STORRS — Thousands of UConn fans, most of them students, spilled onto campus after watching a broadcast of the Huskies’ 76-59 NCAA Tournament win over San Diego State, with some pulling down signs and light poles, smashing windows and causing other damage.Gampel Pavilion was open Monday night for students to watch the game, which was played in Houston. UConn officials said they were still assessing the extent of the damage Tuesday morning and planned to give an update on arrests and any injuries.Most of the partying, which lasted into early Tuesday morning, was peaceful, but social media and television video showed students taking down signs and light posts, with several using one pole to smash through the glass door of one campus building as a crowd cheered.“We were on the streets and people were going crazy,” Nancy Toskova, a 20-year-old junior from Montreal, Quebec, told The Associated Press. “Everyone was celebrating. Everyone was happy. You felt good. Everyone came together. I ...

Rafaele Fierro: Why President Biden Should Pardon Donald Trump

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

On Sept. 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon for the Watergate Scandal. The former President had resigned in disgrace in August of that year rather than face an impeachment inquiry. Many Americans who already had a deep-seated hatred for Nixon were outraged by the pardon, particularly after the new president had suggested just weeks earlier that the public would not stand for absolving Nixon of what likely amounted to high crimes and misdemeanors.History, however, has a way of lifting the haze from the present, and many today believe that Ford’s pardon of Nixon was the right thing to do. Even outraged partisans such as Senator Ted Kennedy, later asserted that “time has a way of clarifying past events, and now we see that President Ford was right.” Ford’s pardon of Nixon can guide us through today’s political turbulence as criminal charges against former President Donald Trump have been filed in a Manhattan Court.Pardoning Trump would be best for th...

Is the rain finally over for San Diego?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – For Californians sick of rain, snow and an all-around stormy start to 2023, the next couple weeks are looking good. The Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released two maps Monday that show California is expecting weather that's both warmer and drier than average starting Easter Sunday and continuing for five days. Does that mean the era of atmospheric rivers is over for this rainy season, and California can finally dry out? California surpasses all-time snowpack record There are good reasons to believe the worst of rain is behind us, explained Brian Garcia, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Bay Area office.For San Diego County, NOAA's 6-10 day outlook predicts a low chance of precipitation, and higher than average temperatures on the horizon."As we move deeper into spring, the odds of having large impactful storms diminishes," said Garcia. "It's tough to say with 100%...

Trump’s expected surrender creates New York spectacle

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A small park built on a site that was once a swampy, sewage-filled pond was ground zero for the frenzy surrounding former President Donald Trump’s expected surrender Tuesday at a courthouse in Lower Manhattan.Hundreds of onlookers, protesters, journalists and a few attention-seeking politicians swarmed into the confines of Collect Pond Park, which sits across the street from the criminal courthouse where Trump was to be arraigned.The crowd was small, by the standards of New York City protests, which routinely draw thousands. And fears that unruly mobs might force police to shut down swaths of the city proved to be unfounded, with security measures mostly disappearing within a couple of bocks.But within the park and the surrounding sidewalks, there was plenty of chaos.Metal barricades separated Trump supporters from anti-Trump protesters, and police stepped in to break up small skirmishes. Journalists, some of whom had taken turns waiting in line all night to re...

AFN chiefs endorse revised child-welfare settlement, call on Trudeau to apologize

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

OTTAWA — First Nations chiefs have endorsed a revised multi-billion-dollar settlement for children and families harmed by Ottawa’s underfunding of on-reserve child and family services. Chiefs gathered for a special meeting of the Assembly of First Nations passed a motion today supporting the new deal, which includes an extra $3 billion from Ottawa and increases the total compensation package to $23 billion. In 2019, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the federal government to pay $40,000 in compensation to First Nations families and kids who were wrongfully separated as a result of its underfunding of on-reserve child welfare, prompting two class-action lawsuits.The federal government started negotiating with the Assembly of First Nations in 2021 to settle the suits, and ultimately agreed to spend $20 billion on reforming the child-welfare system and another $20 billion on compensation. The deal was thrown into question last year after the tribunal rejected the propose...

Suspect in attack that killed military blogger jailed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

A court in Moscow ruled Tuesday that a woman suspected of involvement in a bombing at a St. Petersburg cafe that killed a Russian military blogger who was an ardent supporter of the war in Ukraine should stay in custody for two months pending an investigation.Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, who filed daily reports on the fighting from the front lines, was killed Sunday as he led a discussion at the riverside cafe in the historic heart of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city. Russian authorities described the bombing as an act of terrorism and blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating the attack.Police arrested 26-year-old St. Petersburg resident Darya Trepova, who was seen on video moments before the blast presenting Tatarsky with a statuette that is believed to have contained explosives.The Interior Ministry released a video in which Trepova told a police officer that she brought the bust to the cafe. When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain later. The...

Driver faces first-degree murder charges in deaths of Quebec pedestrians

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

AMQUI, Que. — The Quebec man charged after a pickup truck plowed into pedestrians last month is now facing three counts of first-degree murder.According to charges outlined in an arrest warrant filed Tuesday at the courthouse in Amqui, Que., Steeve Gagnon also faces nine counts of attempted murder.On March 13, a truck hit several groups of pedestrians on a main street in Amqui, about 350 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, in what police have described as an intentional act.Gagnon, 38, was facing two counts of dangerous driving causing death, but the prosecutor had indicated more charges were expected, and a third victim has since died.Three men were killed in the crash: Gérald Charest, 65, Jean Lafrenière, 73, and Simon-Guillaume Bourget, 41.Charest and Lafrenière were killed the day of the crash while Bourget died several days later in a Quebec City hospital.The truck hit 11 people ranging in age from less than a year old to 77.Gagnon, who has been in custody since the incident, ...

About 5K GM salaried workers take buyouts, avoiding layoffs

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — About 5,000 white-collar workers at General Motors took the company’s buyout offers, which the automaker says is enough to avoid layoffs at this time.GM said Tuesday that the offers will save about $1 billion per year in costs, about half of the $2 billion it wants to cut annually by the end of 2024. The company now has about 58,000 salaried workers in the U.S.“The steps we are taking will allow us to maintain momentum, remain agile, and create a more competitive GM,” the company said in a prepared statement.GM hopes to get the remaining $1 billion in savings by reducing vehicle complexity and expanding use of shared parts on internal combustion and electric vehicles. It also plans to cut spending across the company, including for travel and marketing, the statement said.Last month GM offered buyouts to white-collar workers with at least five years of service, and global executives who have been with the company at least two years.The decision to offer buy...

Stocks fall on Wall Street after weaker reports on economy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:50:10 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are falling on Wall Street Tuesday after two reports on the economy came in weaker than expected. The S&P 500 was 0.7% lower in midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 259 points, or 0.8%, at 33,341, as of 12:05 p.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower. Investors are still split on whether the U.S. economy will fall into a recession and how badly corporate profits are set to drop. The biggest question remains what the Federal Reserve will do next with interest rates after hiking them furiously over the last year to get high inflation under control. The reports on job openings and factory orders released Tuesday may have heightened recession fears. But they may also give the Fed reason to hold rates steady at its next meeting in May for the first time in more than a year, offering a possible upside for markets.One report showed employers advertised 9.9 million job openings in February, a sharper fall-off than economi...